Mr. Maberlyrose, to make his promised motion. The hon. gentleman said, that he would briefly state how the law in respect of the land-tax stood at present. In the 4th of William 3rd an act passed, by which the land was charged with 4s. in the pound; and a similar tax was imposed on personal estates, pensions, and offices. This act was passed annually, and so continued to be passed until March 1798, when Mr. Pitt thought it expedient no longer to bring it on as an annual measure, charging four shillings in the pound on land, but to make it a perpetual charge upon the land reserving, of the old act, that part which regarded places, pensions, and personal property. In respect to these the charge was continued by an annual act. The act of 1798 being, by what he considered a most iniquitous determination, declared to be perpetual, it was of course necessary for Mr. Pitt to state what his reasons were for taking such a course as he pursued on that occasion. Being perpetual, it was 221 clearly impossible that the landed interest could ever expect any relief from or a diminution of, the tax. The act provided, that the actual owners of estates desiring to redeem, should have the preference over other parties; and that those so entitled in preference should have this privilege or bonus—that if they purchased 3l. per annum annuities, they should transfer only 3l. 6s. in the three per cents, 3l. 6s. being but one-tenth more than the amount of the redeemed stock which they were to receive. Other parties, not being so entitled in preference, were to transfer 3l. 12s. in the 3 per cents, being in the proportion of but one fifth more than what they were to receive; namely, an annuity of 3l. So the law was continued by the 37th George 3rd, and other subsequent acts, up to the 41st and 42nd Geo. 3rd. By the 42nd Geo. 3rd, the provisions of the various preceding statutes were, with certain exceptions only, repealed. It conferred large and extensive powers on those who might wish to avail themselves of the proposed transfer. Estates, though under limitations, might be sold; lands might be enfranchised; money be taken up on mortgage; and many facilities were extended to corporations, and companies possessing landed estates for the purchase of this land-tax. That act also entailed a very considerable expense in the collection of the revenue it was proposed to raise under it; and he was sorry to say, that expense still continued. The tax itself had been sold to the amount of about 700,000l. a year: so that 1,200,000l. still remained unsold; and yet the country stood at the same expense it would do if the whole amount had been disposed of. The present charge ought to be in proportion to what it was in the aggregate, somewhere between 27,000l. and 28,000l.; but he was convinced that it was very nearly 60,000l. A-year. He would now beg to ask why this tax had not been all sold, and the stock transferred? The reason was very obvious. The nature of the last acts which had been passed on the subject was such, that they defeated the whole intention of Mr. Pitt's bill. In the first place, the 42nd George 3rd, did not put the stranger upon the same relative footing with respect to the owner, which he stood on in the original enactment. The result of the total operations of the several acts had been this. There had been sold of the tax 700,000l., for which govern- 222 ment had got between 24,000,000l. and 25,000,000l. of money; the sale price, upon an average, having been about 66l. in money, for every 3l. of land-tax that had been redeemed. It was because he felt anxious that they should get out, as soon as possible, of the injudicious course which they had been pursuing, that he wished this subject to go to a committee. The plan was quit useless, if it was to remain inoperative; and yet most inoperative it would seem to be; for, in the year 1823, the church and corporation commissioners had redeemed 353l. only; and their expenses in the transactions amounted to 2,200l. He might be told, perhaps, that since the discussion of last year, the sort of collection that he complained of was put an end to. He did not know whether he was rightly informed or not; but, as at present advised, the commission in question he understood to have en a be most expensive one. Their expenses had been about 3,000l. a year, and the whole amount of tax redeemed under their operation had been 80,802l. The House would agree with him that, as things stood in this situation, some course or other was necessary to be adopted, which might extricate them from the difficulty in which the matter was apparently involved. They should either repeal the original plan, or make it inoperative and efficacious. But, how could it be repealed? since it was promulgated in 1798, the proprietors of lands and strangers had purchased about one-third of the tax. If, therefore, parliament were now to repeal the existing perpetual act, and make it an annual one, as formerly, they would be doing the greatest injustice to those who had already purchased. If, on the other hand, they went on to give the measure full effect, they would be doing the greatest benefit to the country, particularly if they proceeded at the present moment. For, let not the House be run away with by what had been more than once urged to them-—that the thing should not be done now, but left to be made available at a time of difficulty or distress. If they were to sell the remainder of this tax at the present price of stock, they would soon perceive that the public would thereby be put in possession of nine or ten millions more than if they were to sell at the same prices at which the previous annuities had been sold. If the alterations of the measure which he hoped to propose in a committee should be adopted and the government 223 be allowed to proceed with the produce to the reduction of the unfunded debt, the greatest imaginable advantage must accrue to the country. It would be obvious to all who heard him that, if thirty or forty millions of money were to be appropriated to the reduction of that debt, the credit of the country would rise so high, that the interest of the 3 per cents might very possibly be reduced to 2½ per cent. Now, no object could be proposed for the application of whatever produce the measure hesuggested might yield, that was so legitimate as the reduction of the unfunded debt. The amount of that debt he believed to be about 36,000,000l. Suppose his suggestions acceded to; and that the present tranquillity of the world, in which he so heartily rejoiced, should be unfortunately disturbed. Suppose a war were to break out, the chancellor of the Exchequer would find himself in this situation—the unfunded debt would be redeemed; the money market very clear; the price of government securities proportionable; and the right hon. gentleman himself would have the means of carrying on the war for two years, without being compelled to make any extraordinary call on the public. If the House should grant him the committee, and the committee, adopting his view of the mattor, should recommend the sale of the remaining tax, and the application of the money produce to the reduction of debt, would not these, he desired to ask, be points well worthy the attention of parliament? And was it not most probable, in such a case, that the interest of the 3 per cents would be diminished to at least 2½ per cent? He knew of no mode by which the House could so readily obtain the benefit that was so much desired, as by this. In 1819, it was said, that adequately to sustain its credit, the country must have a sinking fund of five millions. But, how could public credit be more effectually upheld, than by clearing the money market of this unfunded debt, and by effecting the reduction of the 3 per cents? The House had already seen the beneficial consequences of similar reductions; for, as it had been well observed by the noble member for Northamptonshire, by those reductions of a recent date, the country had really made a nominal capital, amounting to 50 millions, or a money capital of 45 millions; the difference between the two being in fact equal only to the difference between the market price and par. 224 The hon. gentleman, after expressing his intention to defer any further details until the matter should come on in a committee, concluded by moving, "That a select committee be appointed to take into consideration the various acts relative to the redemption and purchase of the land tax, and to report to the House the alterations necessary to be made in order to increase the sale expeditiously as for money, and to apply the amount to the reduction of unfunded debt."
The Chancellor of the Exchequersaid, that when the hon. member had before brought forward his opinions on this subject, not in the shape of a motion for a committee, but in the form of substantive resolutions, he had deemed it necessary to oppose those resolutions, as they appeared to him to be founded in no sound reason. On reconsidering the subject, he saw no cause to alter his opinion; and, he thought, if he consented to the committee, it would only end in disappointment; as it appeared to him impossible that the sanguine views of the hon. member, to which he seemed so closely attached, though he had met with no encouragement from the House, would be, in any degree, realized. As to the original measure for the redemption of the land-tax, as proposed by Mr. Pitt, if it had been brought forward in any other shape, or with any other view than the one with which it was proposed at the time, he should have felt it to be very objectionable, to make perpetual a tax which had never been considered as other than transitory. Neither was there any other advantage in the measure than the specific operation at the time in raising the funds which were as low as 47, and thus enabling the minister to borrow money on better terms. The measure, in point of fact, though called a redemption of the land-tax, was no such thing. The land-tax was not swept away; for though the tax might not be paid to the state, it was paid to an individual. For instance, if a man who was tenant for life of an estate, purchased the land-tax from the public, though during his life the tax might be said to be extinguished; yet, after his death it remained a burthen upon the state, payable by the remainderman to the purchaser's representatives. He did not know what inducement the hon. member proposed to hold out to accelerate the progress of the redemption, but he was so far not indisposed to meet his views, as not to be prepared absolutely 225 to say, that he would not relax the terms on which the land tax was now offered for sale; but he saw no advantage whatever in holding out additional inducements to persons not connected with the land to buy up the tax. For this reason, he should not acquiesce in the motion for a committee; but, if the hon. gentleman wished to bring in a bill, bearing on the face of it his plan, and containing no undue advantage to purchasers not connected with the land, he should not object to the introduction of it. As for the expense of the establishment, which had been reduced, he begged to state, that the reduction had not taken place in consequence of the hon. gentleman's motion. The superintendence was transferred to the Treasury, and the detail of the business to the Tax-office.
§ Mr. Moncksaid, he should support the motion for a committee, not for the purpose of amending the acts for the redemption of the land-tax, but to put an end to them altogether. The plan was worse than illusory; it was mischievous. As sir W. Pulteney had said, it went to plant a perpetual irredeemable annuity, at five per cent, on the country. If they supposed the whole two millions of the land-tax had been redeemed, 66 millions would have been extinguished, and the effect would have been, that a redeemable annuity of two millions would have been extinguished, and a perpetual irredeem-able annuity of the same amount created. If, in the progress of time, the 3 per cents were reduced to 2 per cents, all the difference between the full and the reduced annuity on the amount of the tax redeemed would be lost to the public. It would be, therefore, most impolitic to sell the land-tax to buy up the unfunded debt; because the interest on this debt might be reduced, but the land-tax when sold would be irredeemable and irreducible. The whole system was at once illusory and mischievous, being the mere nominal transfer of a debtor and creditor account, which left the parties it affected to relieve in the same condition they were in before.
§ Mr. Humethought his hon. friend did not do justice to the plan for the redemption of the land-tax; for if there was an irredeemable annuity of 5l. created, suppose, in 1798, when the measure commenced, there was extinguished at the same time an annuity of 6l., and all the difference between the 6l. and the 5l. for the twenty six-years since that time would 226 have been saved to the country. Neither was it to be kept out of sight, that there were sixteen collectors of the land-tax at 700l. a year each, who, with the rest of the expense of collection, would be dispensed with, if the redemption of the tax were effected. All that his hon. friend wanted was, to go into a committee, to see whether the plan was practicable* He saw no reason why this tax might not be sold like ground-rents on an estate, and the expense of collection be thus saved.
Mr. Maberlyreplied. He said, he had abstained from going at any length into the details of this subject, because he had expected that the committee would not have been refused. However, since the right hon. gentleman would not go the length he had expected, he would be contented to take his proposition respecting the introduction of a bill; but he did hope, that if legal difficulties should occur in its formation, the right hon. gentleman would allow that legal assistance and advice which he had in his power. He would bring in the bill; but, in a matter of such weight and importance, he did hope for the indulgence of the House, Under the circumstance of his accepting the right hon. gentleman's offer, he would not, of course, press his motion further.
§ The motion was then withdrawn.